Are We a Declining Race ? 



the salt pork already referred to, with some split 

 peas added to the water in which it was boiled, 

 making a very savoury pea soup. 



Once in four days we had what was supposed 

 to be salt beef, and plum pudding quite a 

 luxurious-sounding title ; but one would scarcely 

 have recognised the article under that name. 

 The flour was often animated by the same kind 

 of life which affected the biscuit, and the plums 

 were few and far between. The beef was always 

 a doubtful substance ; some called it rhinoceros, 

 but it generally went by the name of " salt 

 horse." 



Once in four days, also, we had what was then 

 a new experiment, Australian tinned meat, with 

 a mysterious substance called preserved potatoes, 

 which few could eat without afterwards suffer- 

 ing from heartburn. 



The mid-day meal was washed down by a 

 half-gill of rum. 



For supper, 4.30 p.m., we had tea, boiled in 

 the same coppers in which the pea-soup had just 

 previously been cooked, no milk, and another 

 half-pound of biscuit, after which we fasted 14 

 hours, to allow it to digest. 



This was the ordinary sea-going fare of thirty 

 years ago, therefore if the men have had the 

 advantage of augmenting their diet from the 

 canteen, and the spread of civilisation with its 

 greater facilities of transit enables them to 

 obtain fresh provisions oftener, it is evident that 

 the decline of physique cannot be due to the 

 feeding. Far from objecting to an improved 

 scale of diet, I am very glad that this is now 

 13 



